The following video clip is a 1940s-era news-reel style report on the latest thing, "progressive education." Beware the ideas are quite radical! Schoolwork is relevant, learning-by-doing is advocated
See planning at 11:30 "Planning as part of your assessment... with clear purpose... Classes that podcast almost always use a written script, and yet often visually based projects have little or no planning. Without a clear purpose, kids are just wasting their time. You have to help them focus.
Twemes.com follows public Twitter.com tweets (messages) that have embedded tags that start with a # character. These are sometimes called hashtags but we like to use the term twemes.
I remain very, very concerned with the notion that all we have to do is let the kids connect with the world -- just like they do on Facebook or MySpace -- and the kids will learn. There's a fallacy there, and my experience with how much really deep teaching of digital ethics we've had to do at SLA to counter all that the kids come in the door thinking about the digital world.
is there much of an honest discussion of just how hard implementation of these ideas actually is.
And the problem is that our entire structure has to change to make it easier. You can't teach 150 kids a day this way... you can't have traditional credit hours... you have to find new ways to look at your classroom. Everything from school design to teacher contracts to class size and teacher load to curriculum and assessment -- everything we do in schools -- has to be on the table for change if we are to achieve the kind of schools that video is speaking about. The only thing that shouldn't be on the table, and that the video actually hints that it should be, is the need for teachers in their day to day lives-- the adults who can make a deep profound impact in kids' lives.
"If we just change it all up, the kids will all suddenly just start learning like crazy" when that misses several points -- 1) we still have an insanely anti-intellectual culture that is so much more powerful than schools. 2) Deep learning is still hard, and our culture is moving away from valuing things that are hard to do. 3) We still need teachers to teach kids thoughtfulness, wisdom, care, compassion, and there's an anti-teacher rhetoric that, to me, undermines that video's message.
We cannot pretend these ideas "save" our schools, they create different schools -- better ones, I believe -- but very, very different ones, and that's the piece I see missing.
I remain very, very concerned with the notion that all we have to do is let the kids connect with the world.... There's a fallacy there, and my experience with how much really deep teaching of digital ethics we've had to do at SLA to counter all that the kids come in the door thinking about the digital world.
Far be it for me to suggest that we abandon teaching and leave students to their own devices. Rather, let's be minimally invasive in allowing the learning to happen, but maximally invasive in ensuring that the problems we present to learners are relevant, compelling and appetizing.
let's be minimally invasive in allowing the learning to happen, but maximally invasive in ensuring that the problems we present to learners are relevant, compelling and appetizing.
• Online networks help to define us.
My Blog, My Flickr, My Space, My Facebook, My Friends, My Profile, My Second Life, My del.icio.us, MyBlogLog, My Ning Network, My Twitter, My-Whole-Life-Connected-and-On-Display-For-Anyone-And-Everyone-To-See…
On many levels, ‘access issues’ are key obstacles. Yet, opportunities abound! The web lets us collaborate in many different ways! So now I have to wonder: Do we want our discussions to be around what we can’t do?
It isn’t so much about ‘New Boundaries‘ as it is about removing boundaries. There were holes in the Berlin wall for years… innovative teachers today are escapees from behind similar walls. It is time to tear the old ideological walls down. Teachers and students need access granted!
I’ve seen a real shift in my own thinking recently. Forget whining about access, never mind the slow speed of change, get over the obstacles! Go after meaningful results. Engage and empower students. Be a leader and a role model.
Forget whining about access, never mind the slow speed of change, get over the obstacles! Go after meaningful results. Engage and empower students. Be a leader and a role model.
"A portal to Connect Classrooms to the World: Global Citizens can Share Talents and Skills with Students. Teachers can find Global Citizens (Volunteers) willing to help in a field of interest that they are working on in their class."
Rather than a Digital Native/Digital Immigrant dichotomy,
students have a wide spectrum of digital competence
positively correlating to their digital exposure.
So if I were to make the post title into a statement it would be:
Rather than a Digital Native/Digital Immigrant dichotomy,
students have a wide spectrum of digital competence
positively correlating to their digital exposure.
The goal of education is to enrich the lives of students while producing articulate, expressive thinkers and lifelong learners, that are socially responsible, resilient, and active citizens of the world.
News editors and journalists don't give our wonderful students enough credit and enough accolades! We spend hours telling students how much they are valued and appreciated in schools, then they go into the 'real world' where they are portrayed so poorly by mass media.
“Who did you help today?”
It is simple. It inspires empathy. It shows what we truly value… and I look forward to the day when my daughters ‘favorite part of the day’ is also the answer to ‘who did you help today’.
This post will be printed in a Grade 8 Language Arts Text by Pearson Education.
"Who did you help today?"
It is simple. It inspires empathy. It shows what we truly value… and I look forward to the day when my daughters 'favorite part of the day' is also the answer to 'who did you help today'.
1. Which is your strongest "multiple intelligence" (Gardner)? Take this questionnaire to find out!
2. Choose from the Multiple Intelligence(s) Menu(s) below to see which "Digital Arts" might be most enjoyable for you to explore in iLife and Web 2.0
While most districts are still tackling Web-based collaboration tools from pedagogical and security perspectives, a large number of teachers are already out there using these tools to supplement instruction, engage learners, and encourage their students to become producers of information, as well as consumers of it. In other words, they're experimenting. And here are some of the free tools they're using to do it.
This April, the NEA is marking National Autism Awareness Month by publicizing its ASD resources for teachers and families, including The Puzzle of Autism, a guide to assist educators, inform parents, offer ways to help identify the typical characteristics of ASDs, and provide ideas for ways to work successfully with children who have the disability.
This April, the NEA is marking National Autism Awareness Month by publicizing its ASD resources for teachers and families, including The Puzzle of Autism, a guide to assist educators, inform parents, offer ways to help identify the typical characteristics of ASDs, and provide ideas for ways to work successfully with children who have the disability.